Crusader House

13a Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Block of flats with ground-floor shops, 1892-3, by W S Joseph and C J Smithem. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1405137
Date first listed:: 01-Dec-2011
List Entry Name:: Crusader House
Statutory Address:: 13a Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1405137
Date first listed:: 01-Dec-2011
List Entry Name:: Crusader House
Statutory Address 1:: 13a Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 2:: Apsley Tailors Ltd, 13 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 3:: Flat 1, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 4:: Flat 10, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 5:: Flat 11, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 6:: Flat 12, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 7:: Flat 12a, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 8:: Flat 15, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 9:: Flat 16, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 10:: Flat 17, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 11:: Flat 18, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 12:: Flat 19, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 13:: Flat 2, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 14:: Flat 20, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 15:: Flat 3, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 16:: Flat 4, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 17:: Flat 5, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 18:: Flat 6, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 19:: Flat 7, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 20:: Flat 8, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 21:: Flat 9, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 22:: Spreads of the West End, 15a Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address 23:: Whitecross Dental Care Ltd, 15 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: 13a Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Apsley Tailors Ltd, 13 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 1, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 10, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 11, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 12, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 12a, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 15, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 16, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 17, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 18, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 19, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 2, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 20, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 3, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 4, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 5, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 6, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 7, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 8, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Flat 9, Crusader House, 14 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Spreads of the West End, 15a Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5LU
Statutory Address:: Whitecross Dental Care Ltd, 15 Pall Mall, London, London, SW1Y 5LU

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: City of Westminster (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ2963680332

Summary

Block of flats with ground-floor shops, 1892-3, by W S Joseph and C J Smithem.

Reasons for Designation

Crusader House is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Architectural interest: the main façade is a rich and sophisticated essay in the French Renaissance manner, with excellent carving and ironwork and high-quality shop-fronts. * Group value: with other listed buildings on Pall Mall (including the Athenaeum, Travellers' and Reform Clubs) and Nos. 11-17 Waterloo Place.

History

The building now known as Crusader House was built in 1892-3 as a block of service flats and business premises, part of the rebuilding of much of the north side of Pall Mall during the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. The architects were W S Joseph and C J Smithem, better known for their working-class housing - for example the Guinness Trust buildings in Bethnal Green, and the Samuel Lewis Trust estate on Liverpool Road, Islington. Their later Ada Lewis Women's Lodging House (now Driscoll House), opened in 1913, is listed Grade II.

The builders were Mark Patrick & Son and J T Chappell. The building was later converted into offices, but returned to residential use in 1996; all the interiors apart from the entrance hall and central stairwell date from the latter renovation.

Details

PLAN: Five and a half storeys above a basement, with shops and entrance hall at ground level and flats on the upper floors, arranged around a central top-lit stairwell. Caretaker's flat and light-well to rear.

MATERIALS: Portland stone facing over brick construction. Mahogany shop-fronts with granite piers. Railings of wrought- and cast-iron. Slate roof.

EXTERIOR: The Portland stone façade to Pall Mall is in a highly ornate French Renaissance style with much carved work. The overall composition is tripartite: the central section is recessed, and the outer bays treated as slightly projecting towers, their verticality countered by continuous balconies and loggias across the upper floors. The ground floor contains four shops, two on each side of the main entrance; these have mahogany shop-fronts with moulded uprights and carving in the spandrels and stall-risers. The dividing piers are of grey granite, with freestanding Doric columns in the same material supporting bas-relief panels of cherubs, cornucopias and arabesques. The two central columns frame the entrance porch, whose superstructure rests on outsize scroll brackets with bas-reliefs of male half-figures emerging from foliate volutes, supporting an entablature surmounted by a balustrade with urns. The lintel over the main doorway has a female head in high relief with palm fronds and a strapwork surround. The first floor is of channelled masonry, with engaged columns dividing the tripartite windows in the outer bays. A heavy balustraded balcony on massive scroll-brackets runs the full width of the second floor, breaking forward across the outer bays where a giant pilaster order rises into the floor above, framing carved arabesque panels between the storeys. The central section has a third-floor balcony fronted with wrought-iron scrollwork; the French windows behind are set beneath scrolled pediments on brackets. The fourth floor, above a deep modilion cornice, has channelled masonry to the outer bays and paired Ionic columns forming a loggia in the central section, with a dentil cornice above. The attic features a row of shaped dormers , larger in the outer bays with engaged columns and carved tympana. Twin stacks with banded rustication crown the roof-ridge.

INTERIOR: A small entrance lobby with carved mahogany panels leads to a barrel-vaulted passage floored in black and white marble, which in turn opens into a large central hallway where a broad flying stair rises through the full height of the building. The stair has shaped- stone treads, an ornate balustrade of scrolled ironwork and a moulded hardwood handrail; the lower flight is curved, while the upper flights rise around a top-lit rectangular well. The interiors of the flats all belong to the 1996 renovation.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Area railings in wrought and cast iron, made up of panels of complex scrollwork with foliate terminations, framed by square-sectioned uprights bearing palmette decoration.

Sources

Books and journals
Sheppard, FHW, Survey of London: Volumes 29 and 30: St James Westminster (Part 1), (1960), 339
'The Builder' in , (29 July 1892), 78

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.